Staff Product Manager

Description

The company is a Silicon Valley space systems provider, founded in 2021, that designs, builds and operates LEO satellite constellations for remote sensing data. It builds spacecraft in-house and integrates payloads at its Mountain View, CA facility.

You will be hired as a Staff-level (L6) individual contributor and report to the VP of Product. You will own one to two product areas from end to end. Depending on your background and the company's needs, the area may be the spacecraft platform (the bus and its configurable mission options), the RF and optical data path from satellite to ground (hardware and software), on-board high-performance compute, or the instrument portfolio.

The role calls for senior commercial and architectural judgment, enough technical depth to work as a peer with engineering and leadership, and the ability to work across hardware, software, operations and go-to-market with no team to delegate to.

Responsibilities

• Set strategy and a multi-quarter roadmap for one to two major product areas.
• Decide what counts as a reusable platform capability and what is a customization for one mission or customer. Shape the architecture so that line holds across missions and customers.
• Order the roadmap so near-term deals close while reusable capability builds for later deals.
• Define success metrics for your area and hold the organization to them.
• Own productization for your area and move work away from bespoke, project-by-project commitments toward standard tiered offerings. This is the main return the role is expected to deliver in every area.
• Spacecraft platform: define platform variants, standard interfaces and the set of options offered to mission teams and customers. Control how the platform changes across missions so it does not splinter into one-off versions.
• Bits-to-ground: define latency, availability and throughput tiers from downlink to delivery. Line up ground segment, pipeline and storage spending with those commitments. Set downlink priority rules across the constellation.
• On-board high-performance compute: plan the compute capability roadmap, the SDK and developer interface for mission payloads, and how on-board processing reaches internal teams and outside customers, including edge inference, on-board data reduction and tipping-and-cueing.
• Instruments: decide which instrument capabilities are standard and which are custom, how performance is specified and verified, and how new instruments are packaged for reuse across missions.
• Run discovery with external customers, internal mission teams and partners. Collect structured feedback and turn it into roadmap decisions and productization tests.
• Work with Growth to review won and lost deals, find product gaps and advantages, and feed those findings into product and engineering priorities.
• Track competitors and technology trends in your area and be candid about where the company leads, keeps pace or falls behind.
• Work with engineering across software, hardware and operations.
• Work with Growth on deal structure, contract terms, and where standard packages stop and custom terms begin.
• Support go-to-market teams with sales enablement, technical documentation, RFP responses, customer demos and positioning materials.
• Work with Marketing on product messaging, website content, case studies, whitepapers and thought-leadership pieces that generate demand.
• Work with the VP of Product and the wider PM team on trade-offs across areas, priorities, and the narrative for fundraising.

Requirements

• 8 to 10 years of product management experience, including success with complex, technically deep products spanning hardware, software and data systems.
• A record of owning a large product area end to end, including its architecture, productization and commercial decisions.
• Strong working knowledge of platform, infrastructure and systems engineering leadership.
• Ability to work at Staff level as an individual contributor: make high-stakes decisions, write clear strategy documents, align senior stakeholders and deliver without a team.
• A bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, physics or a related technical field. An advanced degree is preferred.
• Nice to have: familiarity with space systems and LEO constellations, including spacecraft platforms, instruments, ground segment, remote sensing or satellite data pipelines.
• Nice to have: experience building or scaling a product function at a space, defense or deep-tech company.
• Nice to have: experience at a startup or fast-growing technology company.

Conditions

Hybrid role, on site at the Mountain View, CA office three days per week.

Base salary is $243,000 to $274,000. Equity and a full benefits package are also offered. Final pay depends on skills, qualifications, experience and geographic location, as assessed during interviews.

The role requires access to export-controlled information under U.S. export rules. Applicants must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee or asylee) or be eligible to access the information without, or reasonably likely to obtain, the required export authorization. The company may decide not to pursue an export license for legitimate business reasons.

The company is registered to hire in AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IA, ID, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TN, TX, VT, VA and WA.

Benefits

• Equity compensation for full-time employees.
• Medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401k plan, short and long term disability cover, and life insurance.
• Three weeks of paid vacation for new employees, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.